SV: SV: [Y-Indology] a fortunate exchange

[Guest guest]

vsundaresan [sMTP:vsundaresan] skrev 3. mai 2001

21:52:

> The question is, "common among whom?". I submit that,

>

> 1. Such views are indeed still very much common among the vast

> majority of the Western population.

 

That is probably right, at least to some extent. Whether the majority is

"vast" or just a majority is something we don't know anything about. I will

suggest that Japan (and probably China) are generally regarded as by and

large on a par with the West in terms of cultural prestige. The Japanese

are awfully good at beating the Westerners at their own game and I never

see anybody referring to them as inferior in any way. If anything, they are

admired.

 

Africa is a different point. Regarding Africans and Africa, you are likely

to find a number of racist prejudices as well as other prejudices. Thus

Africa and Japan represent the extremes of popular Western attitudes

towards non-westerners. The rest of the world is somewhere in between.

 

> 2. Such views may not be common among a select group of scholars.

 

You will probably find scholars in different fields with arrogant attitudes

towards non-Westerners, but I would be surprised if this is a common

phenomenon. It is not simply a matter of having good manners. Modern

scholarly understanding of the world makes a number of popular prejudices

very difficult to uphold. In the humanities, modern scholars often identify

with the cultures they study and can be quite defensive about them.

 

> 3. If so, Western academia is currently out of step with popular

> Western culture.

 

That is certainly very probable. People don't pay much attention to

"egg-heads" these days. It has been a long time since academics enjoyed the

status of a traditional Oxford don. Read Gombrich's paper on British

university education which you can find on the Indology web site. In fact,

I believe scholars in the humanities started losing status as soon as they

withdrew from old-fashioned nationbuilding and concentrated on critical

scholarship. We don't produce machines and things that kill other people,

so politicians don't pay much attention to us, and the rest of the

population largely prefers a good soccer game to the reading of difficult

books.

 

> 4. Many Indians are not convinced that point 1 above does not

> affect at least some of the scholars referred to in 2 above. As

> Prof. Raman points out, it is perhaps ironic, but such is the

> case, and it needs to be addressed intelligently and patiently.

 

I agree, as I said to Prof. Raman. We have to deal with this, and it will

be an uphill battle because demonization and counter-demonization is so

usual when scholarship and politics mix.

 

> The onus is on academia, to clear away popular misconceptions.

> This is by definition one of the goals of education, which is in

> the hands of academia.

 

The onus is not only on academia, but also on the mass media. If we produce

wonderful thoughts and insights but hardly reach a single soul outside our

own community because newspapers and magazines find that there is no

"market" for our ideas, we are not able to clear up popular misconceptions.

There is a reason, you know, why Arnold Schwarzenegger's books on

body-building sell for a few dollars (a million-buyer market) whereas

academic books are prohibitively expensive (a small and select group of

readers).

 

>Trends like Romanticism,

> Orientalism, post-modernism, subalternism etc come and go. In

> the meantime, the current level of support for academic pursuits

> in solid Indology is already abysmal. Should it be allowed to

> die out altogether?

 

Heaven forbid! It has struck me that the recent surge of Hindutva may

actually strengthen Indology. The West used to understand people like Nehru

(allegedly the last British person to rule India). India's new rulers - not

to mention their followers - may be much more impenetrable.

 

Lars Martin

 

 

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse

Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,

0674 Oslo

Norway

Phone: +47 22 32 12 19

Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45

Fax 1: +47 22 32 12 19

Fax 2: +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)

Email: lmfosse